SOUTH SLIGO COMES TO TERMS WITH ROUTINE OF BOILING WATER
HOMES and businesses across South Sligo affected by the Cryptosporidium Boil Water Notice are asking questions about how long it will be in place.
Residents and business owners have spoken to The Sligo
Champion about the inconvenience and extra work and cost it’s putting on their daily lives.
Alistair Price runs a newsagent in Coolaney. Normally a pallet of 2l water containers lasts him six or seven weeks.
After the Boil Water Notice was announced at 4.30pm on Monday 5 th February, he sold a full pallet within 24 hours.
“People are buying two at a time. I never ran out but I’m kept going,” he said.
Thinking in hindsight, Alistair believes he may have been affected himself by the parasite detected in the Lough Talt water supply.
“A lot of people are looking back in hindsight - even myself maybe a week ago I had a little problem for a day or so and it could be connected to that you know,” he said.
“The biggest issue is how long is it going to go on for. It’s not going to be a quick solution I think. Nobody knows,” he said. Across the road in her hair salon, proprietor Gabrielle Davey and her hair stylist Annette McCullagh are having to boil water at home and at in the salon for tea/coffee for customers.
“We’re buying bottled water, we wouldn’t be using that water for making tea,” said Gabrielle.
They had a client in that morning whose son and herself had been sick in the last couple of days and had since made a full recovery.
“A lot of our clients’ children were sick with the vomiting bug - whether it was that or the water they don’t know but in the last while so many children were sick. They’re just wondering now,” she said.
There is a dose of Chicken Pox doing the rounds and Gabrielle said parents were nearly afraid to bathe their child in the tap water because of the risk of infection of open blisters.
“That’s another side to it,” she said.
Up the road in Little Haven Creche, Manager Laura Leydon and her team look after up to 55 children a day. “It’s tough in that everything has to be boiled. You have to be careful. You have to watch them very closely because they’re small and they don’t understand the dangers,” she said.
She’s had to out and buy extra bottled water as well as boiling water in their kitchen.
“It’s an extra cost, of electricity and buying the bottles,” she said.
Tubbercurry is the largest urban area serviced by Lough Talt and therefore has the most number of businesses affected.
Barry Murphy of Murphy’s Hotel on Teeling Street told this newspaper that despite the inconvenience it was business as usual.
“It’s not too much of an inconvenience. Hopefully it doesn’t last too long,” he said.
President of Tubbercurry Chamber of Commerce and The Laundry Basket proprietor Geraldine Brennan is worried about the long term economic impact it will have on the town.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve had anything like this here in Tubbercurry,” she said.
“I’m hoping it’s only for a few days, that it might go as quickly as it came. It was announced quite suddenly. I was conscious of telling people the next day about it. Because not everybody’s on social media.
“We’ve had a lot of vomiting/ diarrhoea around the place, a lot of sickness since Christmas,” she said.
“We thought it was just flu’s but then people were saying that they were getting sick and with diarrhoea so it’s a bit odd. You’d worry how long it was there before it was noticed,” she said.
Over in Cawley’s Hotel, proprietor Teresa Krebbs and her team have been busy since the Boil Water Notice was announced.
“We got an early notification from Councillor Dara Mulvey by text on the Monday and it was just a matter of getting organised the first few days, there’s no problem,” said Teresa.
“Everyone is aware of it and it’s obvious we’re doing everything we need to do for them. It’s an inconvenience but as long as it doesn’t got on for too long we’ ll just get on with it,” she said.
Staff member Tracy O’Kennedy said she and her team have been busy: “Between boiling water and cooling water down for people to drink, everything has to be boiled before you prepare your salads and your vegetables,” she said.
“You’re using extra electricity, extra gas, it’s extra time as well,” she said.
The hotel is providing glass bottles of cooled boiled drinking water for residents and has also taken the extra step of reducing the price of their bottled water and their minerals for customers.
Michael Foley of Foley’s Bar says he isn’t badly affected by the Boil Water Notice.
“I don’t think it’s going to make any major difference, I don’t serve food. But we are kind of worried - how long is it going to last?
“Food businesses would be a lot more inconvenienced. But we’d still be concerned about how long it’s going to go on for,” he said.
Róisín Healy manages the busy Centra service station on the way into Tubbercurry.
“Absolutely it’s a big inconvenience. We have to boil water and then let it cool before we can use it preparing food in our salad bar.
“It’s that or use bottled water. We’ve been out of water - we had to go to the Cash and Carry in Sligo yesterday to get water and we’re back out of water today and there’s water in again tomorrow,” she said.
“Hopefully it won’t be long term. We have to keep going anyway,” she said.
Róisín has never seen in her lifetime a boil water notice put in place for Lough Talt water supply.
Her reaction when she heard it was contaminated with Cryptosporidium was “awful.”
“I was reared in Tubbercurry and I don’t ever remember a boil water notice. I don’t ever, ever, ever remember having to boil water here before this. Definitely it’s something that shouldn’t be happening.”
“I don’t ever remember a boil water notice here. It’s not something that should be happening ”